Sunday, October 31, 2004

Gay Marriage - The Last Word Damnit! (SM & NSM)

Chatting with a wonderfully romantic idealist young friend the other day and he asked me if I would ever want to get married. He was looking for a touchy feely emotional answer to spew from me pertaining to my quest for “the one” – the soul mate. Strike the choir. I instead asked him what he meant by “married”. Yes, fingers held up into the quotation mark gesture. After his Pollyanna description of, “You and someone else in a committed relationship with 2.5 kids and a picket fence and health insurance coverage, etc, etc, etc.” (Take note: It is the wistful sighing on the “etc, etc, etc,” that will warn you that you are talking to a romantic idealist.) I decided no emotional diarrhoea from this puppy. I chose to have “THE DEBATE”. I have been avoiding said debate as if it was a flesh eating disease. It just bored the hell out of me. Not so much that it is lacking passion, as there is plenty of that, but because people are just not getting it. People are motivated by a root cause to this problem but no one knows what that motivation is or it if they do, it is too scary a conversation to have. It would make the foundations of lives start to tremble. Ideals could fall!

My answer is I do not feel a need to be married by society. Further, redefining the marriage term for those who do want to be in relationships recognised by society is not the answer. We need to define who we are. Let the people who procreate have the word marriage. It has plenty of baggage attached and let them have that five piece set. Gay people need to get a term for other unions and relationships. Then the country has to recognise these other unions as another type of relationship in the same category as marriage. Right now under the big umbrella of relationships for couples is the marriage umbrella. Then all other relationships come under that umbrella. We need to now recognise that the big umbrella must be equal rights and freedom and under that is a sub category called relationships and both marriage and gay unions will be on equal platform under that umbrella. See? Simple.

The marriage group is upset because it thinks the gay union group wants to be treated the same as they are. It is impossible to treat each group the same. But we cannot confuse “same” with “equal” or equal with same as ideological concepts. Same means behaviourally acting in the alike. Whereas equal as a concept is about the treatment and rewarding of all. The gay union people do not want to be the same as the married group. (And really why would they? And secondly it is impossible for gay unions and marriage to be the same. Humour me I am getting there.) Gay unions simply want to be seen as equal.

But why do married people argue so much over it? I am about to give heterosexuals their strongest possible argument. It is all about who feels they are contributing more to society. And this is something the gay union group has to accept as reality. Why? By today’s definitions the married group believes they contribute the greatest good to society. On one level they do. They procreate. Yes they continue the natural order of birth-life-death-birth-life-death that is the sustaining force of all life on this planet. Those that procreate believe they should get the most of the nutrients to keep growing and get the most rewards for doing so. Anything outside that natural norm is the exception to the rule and should be treated as so. How does nature usually deal with those exceptions to the rule? Does nature ignore it or leave it be? The plant that cannot procreate simply dies; it simply exists while it is alive. Or do even the procreating plants block out a lot of the sun to the non-procreating plants?

Ah but we humans with our higher consciousness, the mind that knows it is a mind! We decided at some point that not only was the non-procreator not an exception to the rule but should be nurtured EQUALLY like the procreators. There are many people in society other than homosexuals who do not procreate who are nurtured and often given preferential treatment. Homosexuality is different - different but equal. But still gay people have to recognise they are an exception to the rule of the natural order of life. Those that procreate whether human or other mammals/animals do create homosexual offspring so it is not so much that homosexuality is outside the natural order it is a minority expression within the natural order.

The natural order of life is a neutral concept. It has gained a lot of flack and mudslinging. But part of the ownership of the idea is the defence of the idea itself. But I think gay people know that. I think it is the procreating people who want or need to hear the gay people say they know they are not directly contributing to the continuation of life on this planet at its basic foundation. Maybe that is it! What if we get all gay unions to have as part of their ceremony a sentence something to the tune of “And we acknowledge we do not directly contribute to the continuation of life on this planet at its basic foundation but do believe we contribute in….”

Because today’s “traditional married couple” are the torchbearers of procreation they believe that they are making the highest contribution to society. Procreation makes them more important and better and they should be treated as if they are more important and better than those who do not carry that torch. We have some hurdles to clear before we can get to the neat idea of placing married and gay unions as equal categories in a category called life. They are just two ways people can contribute to life; equal ways! Before we get there we have to dismantle the ideological hierarchy that history has created that made us think procreating was the highest contribution to life. Switch that ideology around to thinking that “nurturing life” is a more powerful instrument in the continuation of our species than the instruments of procreation.

There is precedent. There are many societies, our own included, where there was/is such a profound connection between the seen and unseen world; the worlds of the physical and the beyond the physical where nurturing is as valued as biological nature. Most cultures believe the big reward is in the after this life, in the unseen. In the past and still in some cultures the highest contribution to life was to become a monk or priest: a man of “God”. They were spiritual guides and bridge keepers between the physical and the metaphysical. These keepers of the gate were considered the greatest gift. They did not procreate. Their job was to keep the path to the gate/bridge open for us all. They were rewarded by having their way of life seen as the highest calling from life itself. But western society moved into the direction where they who give birth to babies are at the top of the food chain. They get the juiciest morsels and all else are at the lower end to get the drippings. (Though in present day, a strong argument could be made that the highest calling of life is to have fame, fortune, and power. And those who create and maintain such are at the top of the food chain.)

Only when we have accepted the paradigm shift of what is our highest ideal will we be able to think of loving gay unions and the marriage of loving procreators as equal but separate categories of freedom of life on this planet. For if we feel that only marriage linked to procreation is the truest form of relationship and continuation of life then we have to remove heterosexual couples who choose not to have or are unable to have children from the category called marriage. People who choose to be single or cannot be married for various social or health reasons are doubly screwed on the food chain.

In the future this may all be irrelevant as reproductive technologies are creating the brave new world. When fertilisation can happen outside the womb we are a short period away from external gestation. In a recent conversation with a scientist friend she was saying the technology is already there but it has been deemed illegal. Part of that illegality is the procreators feeling their place on the ideological food chain is becoming threatened. Appealing to a natural order deemed by a god is a good cover for threatened egos. Soon the chicken will not be required to get the egg or is it that the egg will not be required to get the chicken. The biological interaction of penis and vagina, vagina and vagina, and penis and penis is distracting us from what is really important. In the final analysis the argument has to be about nurture and not nature. Nature is just the what. Nurture is the how. And in the end it is our ability to nurture that will continue life on this planet.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Big Boom Whom Soon Sum? (SM)

When I went to see “I-Robot” I was on the computer’s side. Damn that Will Smith cybernetic arm. With the sloppy state of the world today I do not have faith in humanities ability to save a goldfish. I suppose I should actually say “man” and not humanity for it is the male side of humanity that has created this mess. Maybe the female side can clean it up. But I have a fear that the snowball is rolling down the hill so fast collecting so much crap that when it hits the bottom it is going to be a gargantuan and messy ka-boom!! Even attempting to get it back up the hill would be Sisyphean. Where did it start to go wrong?

Man is the only animal that kills outside its own food chain. Man is the only animal that kills for sport. Man is the only animal that kills for shoes. Man is the only animal that can create things with high levels of sophistication. Therein is the problem. The moment we learned how to make tools we began the process of throwing the natural order out of sync. That is the moment we started killing across many food chains and for more than just food – the beautiful shoes.

Think about it. Before all the above happened all the critters fed off each other and all the systems were even cross-integrated. Simple - think about when all the animals (and prehistoric man included) pissed and shit wherever they found themselves they provided the fertiliser for all the plants and animals etc etc and the cycle of life continued. But no more for we are responsible for the destruction of this planet and right now we are in the poisoning stage of that destruction. Has all our self-realisation been worth the price?

Then I find myself trying to see the big picture, you know the whole solar system, galaxy, universe, time thing. Maybe man is really just another cog in a “deus ex machina” much greater than our creative powers can comprehend?

Maybe earth is just one big magnetic battery feeding power to the universe (and vice versa) like all the other planets. Maybe all the combustible gasses we are giving off are causing the earth to become a more powerful battery and we are starting to see the energy spike. This spike may last a while longer. But like all batteries it will start to die out. Are human’s a part of the internal fuel for the earth battery? When we finally consume ourselves we will have a final energy burst and destroy all around us. This is maybe the same thing that is happening with all the stars, planetary batteries burning out. Now pull back as far as your mind can get you and think of this big glowing ball all glimmering throughout with cascades of light flowing through it as energy expands and collapses. Maybe each one of those flashes is how some being holding that ball measures a second.

Now if that is not reason enough to go, “What the fuck are you on man?” Maybe realising that the earth explodes in this little grandiose theory is a more immediate concern for sadness. Is there a way to slow down our battery burnout? Is returning to our historical ways that were a bit more renewable energy systems oriented the only solution or even possible. Do we care? The lack of motivation for acting responsibly with the planet is due in part to the reality we cannot see past our noses. Our singular lives will most likely be but a grain of sand in the immortal (or not) hourglass. Because acting responsibly now does not impact us directly but future generations we can turn a blind eye to it and let someone else worry about it. Or maybe we think it is just the natural order of things and it will all take care of itself. Regardless we do not see any imminent danger connected to our present and supposedly inconsequential actions.

But hey there is no need to fret now. Think of what might happen when earth explodes and throws off the gravitational pulls of all the planets. If our ka-boom does not cause a cascading of ka-booms the planets will realign in relationship to the sun. That will then cause a shift in climates across all the planets and on one of those new climates a single cell divides and a new battery begins to be built into a power cell and the process of energy transference continues.

Friday, October 15, 2004

Why 40 year olds cannot date 20 year olds. (NSM)



When I was 20 I had to be getting somewhere. To say my life was going nowhere was anathema. So all my energies were put on getting somewhere. That is the essence of our 20's. Dealing with uncertainties. Trying to figure it out.

When I was 30 I had to figure out if where I was, was where I wanted to be. There was the ever present, “Am I doing what I really want to do with my life?” To say my life was not going the way I planned or hoped was anathema. That is the essence of our 30s. Dealing with certainties. Trying to figure out if they are the ones we want.

Now I am 40. I have realised that there is nowhere to go. There is no other real destination for humans other than death. This is not a negative thing but a very liberating thing. The challenge for me now is to find creative and interesting things that I can be excited about between now and then. Then can happen at any moment. So the moments in-between have to have personal meaning. Is that the essence of our 40's? Dealing with the unknown and not letting it mind-fuck us? Trying to cultivate magic moments? I’ll answer that question 10 years from now.

Sadly (and I am sure this may be a universal truth) I did not see that much of the magic of my teens, 20's, and 30's. Upon reflection I can see the magic and take joy in a life well lived but I can imagine how much more exciting it would have been if I new I was experiencing magic at all those times.

Here is a brief synopsis of my adult life.

Formal Education

Bachelor of Arts (English), University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Graduate Studies Diploma (Theology), Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto

Seminary Training Program, Resurrection College, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Tarragon Studio acting workshops.

Summer Institute of Film and Television, Directors workshop.

Nutrition and Wellness Specialist, Canadian Association of Fitness Professionals

Personal Trainer Specialist, Canadian Association of Fitness Professionals

Standard First Aid and CPR, St. John Ambulance, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Former certified member of the Coaching Association of Canada

Experience

In my late teens and early twenties I was an overachiever. This probably has everything to do with wanting to be accepted and to fit in. I wanted the world to tell me what a nice boy I was. I became active in Boy Scouts of Canada, Church Youth Groups, Parish Councils, and Knights of Columbus. I even called bingo numbers. It was during this period that I had the opportunity to meet and have a short chat with the then Princess of Wales, Diana. Charles has a wicked handshake.

In 1984 I was placed on the Canadian Guest Speakers List for International Youth Year. Supposedly someone believed I had an insight into youth issues. Yes I did burn out at one point.

In 1986 I was asked to take part in a community service and development pilot project sponsored by the Jesuits. The project involved a member of the religious community and a person with some youth experience to live and work in a welfare housing project. This was a very challenging year. And though I left the project after a year I kept working in the community in another capacity for three more years.

From 1987 - 89 I worked for a community centre as a program coordinator and a sports coach. Other than having a lot of good intentions I did not know a lot. This is when I decided to get some serious coaching training with the Coaching Association of Canada and received a full Level One Certification and completed the theory portion of the Level Two Certification.

During this time I took several undergraduate courses in psychology to gain some insight into what makes people tick.

In 1989 a friend suggested I go on a program called S.E.R.V.E. (Summer Endeavour in a Redemptorist Volunteer Experience). For six weeks I lived in a Christian Community and was a volunteer at L'Arche a community for people with developmental disabilities. L'Arche was a very humbling experience. I am a person who enjoys feedback and when working with someone with a disability you get no traditional feedback. You have to trust. I have a brother with Tourrett's and so working at L'Arche touched off other issues.

After completing the S.E.R.V.E. program I was pumped about the Redemptorist Religious Community and the Youth Ministry work they did. I had thought of a religious vocation many times previously and decided while the metal was hot I should strike.

It was at Resurrection College where I received the bulk of my training in community dynamics. Besides completing an English Degree I took nine Philosophy Courses that were prerequisites for the Graduate Theology program. These courses ranged from introductory courses to philosophy of human nature, existence of God to Ethical Theory. Surprisingly I did not fall asleep in class but found it fascinating.

Also at Resurrection College I was introduced to one of the most insightful tools of personality typing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This is a typing tool that has a few variations and I use it to help clients gain insight into how they process the world.

One of the most beneficial components of the Resurrection College program was that seeing a counsellor/spiritual director was mandatory. I like to think of it as four years of therapy. And I survived. Not only were we taught how to minister to people's needs but ours were ministered to as well. One of the reasons I have such respect for the power of life coaches and mentors is I have had a few amazing ones.

My four years in community services and recreation followed by my four years in Religious Life was a win/win situation. Though I decided to move on to something else it was one of the most formative periods of my life. I like to think of it as having a no limit credit card in the philosophy, community, spirituality, and psychology home depot of personal development.

After completing grad school I made a departure from the world of community and religious dynamics. In case you are wondering today I consider myself a secular humanist with a Taoist bent.

When I left religious life I was lost. I was broke. I had no circle of friends in a new city. I tried to tap into some of the other things I wanted to be when I grew up. I realised that as a child I loved TV and movies. I had always thought I wanted to be an actor - off to acting class. I did a TV commercial for Trivial Pursuit, had the lead in a music video, and a theatre gig. It was during the theatre gig that I got to do some directing and caught that bug. But I was still broke.

The next stage of my life placed me in the business world. Because I believed I was on touchy feely overload and acting was not paying the bills I felt it was time to do something less that. I worked in a coffee shop for three years and ended up becoming a graveyard shift manager. From there I entered the world of advertising for a large agency in Toronto working as an account executive on a few very high profile pieces of business.

I was amazed at how all the personality, community, and group dynamics training in my past gave me insights into managing the business world. Quickly though I realised that my calling in life was not advertising. I found consumerism to be a vacuous pursuit.

In 1998 a friend asked me to help him start a magazine and seeing as the writer in me was dying to get back into action I leapt at the opportunity. For the next year and a half we published a magazine called DRAGÜN in Toronto. As the Editor and Senior Writer for the magazine I was able to hone all the skills from my English degree. If you ever want to learn to write well or write better may I suggest you take a job as an editor. You will learn to look at the technique and craft of writing as well as the creativity and then be able to get enough emotional distance from your own work to know when you've written crap. Being an editor has helped me be a better writer.

In 1999 during a moment of angst and finding advertising to be soulless I did some soul searching. I decided to explore the directing curiosity and took a summer course. Over the next year film school was not an option so I decided I would write, produce, and direct a short. In true Woody Allen fashion I also gave myself a role. The project was successfully executed from a technical standpoint but the story and acting were weak.

In 2000 a friend in Singapore was starting an Internet company and it was at the peak of the boom. Content was supposedly everything. He had seen my work on DRAGÜN and asked if I would like to move to the other side of the planet and help an Internet start-up. I said yes. Within three months of my arrival in Singapore the Internet bubble burst. We were all let go. If you want to see how strong your coping skills are I suggest you find yourself in a foreign country without a job, no place to stay, and a work visa that has just been revoked.

Well I am still alive but my coping skills were tested to their limits and at times I thought past breaking point. I stayed in Asia for about 11 months and travelled a bit. Bangkok - the city where you can be on your knees in the daytime for one reason and at night for a completely different one. Dancing on the beach at an all night party in Singapore. Lounging without a care in Phuket, Thailand. Thinking the building next to the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was nicer looking. Sydney, Australia Mardi Gras, you know a parade at night is really cool. The world is a big fascinating place but more similar than I thought different.

When I returned to Canada I met up with my sister one day and noticed that in the year I was away she put on a lot of weight. She tells the story that my enquiry into what happened was not the most sensitive or diplomatic. Being aware of my history in recreation and an avid exerciser she asked my advice in developing a program to help her get back into shape. One day during an instruction session she suggested that I should think about doing this full-time. Bells went off, lights came on, and a few certifications later I arrive at the end of this sentence.

As I began to further educate myself I realised that working as a life coach and a health and fitness consultant was the perfect way of bringing all my education and experience to one single focus.

Today I teach ESL at a language centre, I am a health and fitness consultant, and I am writing again with two pieces published this year.

Now here I am!

If anyone told me this story I would say, “WOW!” But for so many years I could not see the WOW!

The magic of my life seemed to be outside my vision and understanding. (Except my time at UofW. I glimpsed that magic a few times and knew it.) I suppose this would be a good place to mention that I have suffered from Bipolar Mood Disorder since my early 20s but did not get it diagnosed and begin treating it until I was 37. Not sure how much that kept the magic hidden and will not waste time figuring it out.

I have also had a lot of magic in my love life. I have had some amazing relationships full of much joy. I have fallen in love. I have had my heart broken and I have broken hearts. And I would not trade any of those experiences. And I have been known to have great sex.

Well if you haven’t figured out what all this has to do with, “Why 20 year olds cannot date 40 year olds.” Let me connect the dots. LIFE!

I don’t think I have life figured out but I have lived some life. And more importantly I have stopped trying to chase that meaning. Now I am just trying to find things that give my life personal meaning.

I would never have been able to say that in my 20's and 30's and there are only a very small minority of people in their 20's and 30's who can understand that. I am not sure if I have met any of them and there is a part of me that thinks they do not exist. The focus of 20's and 30's is very different than 40's. I am sure the focus of my 50's and 60's (knock wood) will be very different than they are now.

SO there be the problem boys and girls. When a 20 year old finds an interesting 40 year old they will never be able to know the journey of 20 years until they experience it. They are both seeing life from such different places. This is not a judgement just a reality. A 40 year old will never be able to regain that youthful idealism and lust for life possessed by a 20 year old. A 20 year old will never have the perspective and experience of a 40 year old. That just is. A 20 year old will always want to know where is it going, what is it becoming, will it last? A 40 year old will always want to have the magic of the moment. The 20 year old is searching for permanence. The 40 year old will know there is only impermanence. I was dating a guy around 20 and this was the reality. He once said I was cold and passive to which I responded, “You should never confuse cold and passive with nonchalance.”

I think a 40 year old can understand and appreciate a 20 year old, but a 40 year old is just old to a 20 year old. The 20 year old has his map laid out in front of himself where a 40 year old sees no reason for the map. Let’s see where the road takes us.

Today I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. I am somewhat excited about it. Will I make another film? I do not know. The first was more a curiosity. I realised earlier this year that the reason I wanted to be a filmmaker was not because I feel I had something to say but I wanted the world to look at me!! I think I may make a film if I feel I have something to say.

I have finally found my voice as a writer and have begun to explore it. I write because I feel I have something to say not because I want the world to say what a nice boy I am. I use to think my life was going nowhere. But that was when I thought fame, power, and money would give it meaning. My life has been in some amazing magical places and I am sure it will be in many more. And now...


Friday, October 08, 2004

A Matter of Choice or "Hmmmmmm Chocolate" (NSM)

In 2003 my friend Ray turned 35. He was watching a lot of Sex And The City at the time and really identified with Carrie Bradshaw turning 35 and all the angst as well. So I decide to write him a little piece as a present. Just image Carrie banging away at her laptop as you read this.

***************

Has this happened to you? It’s 3:00am and you have just smoked pot and now 20 minutes have passed and you are at the 7/11 staring into the ice-cream freezer. “Chocolate Fudge Cookie Dough or Cappuccino Crunch? Oh wait! French Vanilla?” Or worse it is 3:00pm and you are at Baskin-Robbins with thirty-one ways to mind-fuck yourself. Sowing the ice crystals of self-doubt and confusion in a garden called entropy.

Choices. They suck and not in that good way a man would want them to suck. But maybe it is not so much that choices suck but it seems I am making some really crap choices. For the longest while I have found my choice making to be on autopilot. But then if something is on autopilot there are not that many choices being made. Confusion!

Turning 35 years old seems to up the wattage shining on one’s choices or lack thereof. The number chills like a harbinger of doom, a milestone that feels like a millstone around the neck. Is life half over? Have I made poor choices so far? Do I get a few more ops to make better choices? But scarier yet, do I have the maturity to make the better choices?

Maybe it is not so much poor choices but rather easy choices. Hard choices often involve a delaying of gratification. Maybe that is the hurdle that keeps tripping. Maybe I equate easy with wrong and hard with good?

We are always afraid to make the wrong choice. But who said there is any such thing as a wrong choice. Sure choosing to step off the curb ignoring the “Don’t Walk” sign could be seen as the wrong choice. I would venture to say that it has nothing to do with right or wrong but it was a poor choice from the variables available. Is this the crux of the choice angst? The fear that we will make the wrong choice? Is some group of “choice police” ready to pounce upon us and truss us up in the town square where all the “right choosers” get to laugh and mock us? Maybe that does happen psychologically every time someone says, “How could you?” or “What were you thinking?” We just do not want to be on that side of the conversation.

But far more insidious than any town square ridicule is the inner turmoil of our own thoughts. It is so easy to get into the game of second-guessing every move on the chessboard of life. And that makes for a long and boring play. Maybe the challenge is to play the game with passion and make as many choices as possible. So what if a choice turns out to be poor? Make another one. See that is another side to this dilemma. We feel that every choice must be a forever. We have no appreciation for the possibility that the circumstances of a choice may change and we may want to do something different. Why is it that every choice demands a lifetime commitment? We give up our freedom.

Free will is not so much about humans being able to do anything they bloody well want, but so much more about their ability to choose from a variety of options. We have to let ourselves be free to make a wrong choice.

Sure this is easy to do when it is a simple case of getting tired of chocolate and deciding it is time for the French Vanilla. It gets a little weightier when it comes to purchasing a house, changing a job, or finding a mate. These choices seem to have a finality about them that scares the bejeebus out of us. But houses do get sold and new ones purchased, jobs end and new ones start, and yes sometimes relationships end and new ones start.

The higher on the finitude scale we place a choice, the more anxiety about changing our choice. But this is the nature of life. Someone chose to eat the apple, someone chose to betray a friend for 30 pieces of silver, and someone chose to be rather than not to be. Poor choices all? By the same yardstick a man chose to strive a little further to reach a mountain summit, a woman chose to leave her companions and live among lepers, and a man chose to live a dream of racial equality. Good choices all? Choices have to be made on their own merits, not in the shadows of disappointments nor with the belief that a ball and chain is sold with each one.

Maybe if we spend less time agonizing over our choices and more time living them our days would be filled with action instead of inaction. Triple Brownie Surprise or Cappuccino Crunch. Hmmm which one?

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Media Colonization (SM)


W
hy have other countries with similar or greater populations not had the international reach, success, and global control that the USA has? The answer is to be found in the very fabric of society. Most eastern cultures are built on preserving the family unit through observance of history and tradition. Society is a mere collection of families.

Western society is based on the individual being all he can become. Even the family unit is mere training ground for the individual to go off and become all that he can. And then that individual will find another individual to create more individuals.

When a society is based on family, history, and tradition it looks backward before it looks forward whereas when a society is based on the freedom of the individual it looks forward before it looks backward. The first looks back for guidance on how to proceed; the second looks forward for inspiration to guide.

When a society is based on individuals making it on their own they have to do so outside the family unit - therein they are explorers by nature. And explorers not only discover but then pass on all their beliefs and processes.

So that is why the USA is the world's best explorer at this time in history. It was previously the British Empire. (As you go back in history you find periods of exploration in most cultures histories.) But once they decided to stop exploring and stay put in one place they came up against a large population. And it was probably the passing on of Western education that taught colonized people to fight for independence. All those histories of conquering made the colonizers think to give it a try themselves and kicked the British out. And because the British ran out of places to mine for resources they no longer had big amounts of cash for military pursuits. The reduced resources had to be used to look after growing populations and the upkeep of current colonies.

Now it is America's turn. But America is doing a new breed of colonization. Media Colonization. CNN is the lead horse in the communication systems race of the world. This first started within the country when small media shops joined. They became bigger and bigger after merger after merger after hostile takeovers. Now the American Ideology is in the hands of a few giants and though they have varying opinions on what it is to be American they all embrace and would die for freedom of the individual.

Media is the harnessed power. A power that cannot be avoided for it is no longer just a colonizastion for land and resources it has also become a colonization of ideologies. And the ideology that has the biggest TV satellite is the United States of America; it is an ideology that happens to have a huge army (military and non) of like-minded explorers. Victory is certain based on the current strategies, market shares, and players.

As America liberates the world it will use its media to empower the colonized. The information will be at the hands of “Friends” and “Everyone Loves Raymond” and at the hands of Larry King and Dan Rather. And yes OPRAH and Dr Phil. And what will the message be? The freedom of the individual with the ultimate expression of the individual being “one who makes it on his own”. Next comes being a responsible consumer; it is consumerism that is the fuel of media colonisation. The colonizer needs more open markets to provide more products for domestic consumption.

America will take its place in explorer history, though it may take a few generations to happen. As the British bumped into large populations who resisted those ideologies or acquired them based on the ideology that they should be free from the colonizers, so too will the USA bump into those who do not wish to be colonized any further. And then those populations of new individuals will begin to explore the world.

The USA should not be surprised when the colonized respond with force for they responded with force to their coloniser?

Monday, October 04, 2004

Why are so many gay men obsessed with the body beautiful? (SM)

Homosexuality has a narcissism quotient. Until recently homosexuals could not procreate nor adopt. Children make people look outside themselves. (Pets and plants do as well to a lesser degree.) With no children to take them outside themselves gay men can focus all their disposable cash and time to pursuits they wish to enjoy - where, when, however they choose to do so. This eventually leads to self-absorption and one of the ways to be self-absorbed is through body obsession and the pursuit of mythic body types. Lets face it on some level we are all measuring our ass and chest by the creation of Michealangelo's hammer and chisel. Though most often we feel smugly satisfied thinking he has a small dick! Maybe a comparision to his modern progeny? But then again maybe he was a grower not a shower and if you were in a town square with people staring at you ya might not be able to let yer manhood extend so far either. Off to the gym.